broken serenade - johnlock
by Stardust24601
Summary: ᶰᵒᵗ all ᵐᵒᶰˢᵗᵉʳˢ ᵈᵒ monstrous things.
1. 0 - introduction

❝ ᶰᵒᵗ all ᵐᵒᶰˢᵗᵉʳˢ ᵈᵒ monstrous things -

 **summary ;**

sherlock holmes and john watson: two abnormal yet normal teenage boys, with very mundane aspirations. they do the things boyfriends do, forget about their homework, spend late evenings sharing kisses on the bleachers of the rugby field.

everything changes, though, when John gets bitten, and mysterious killings are reported in the small town they call home. Sherlock, who takes great interest in his father's job, is determined to solve the murders.

and John has no proof that he didn't kill all of those innocent, innocent people.

* * *

 **information ;**

johnlock [sherlock x john] as the ultimate ship

teen!lock

contains werwolves and other supernatural creatures

heavily inspired by Teen Wolf

* * *

 **warnings ;**

graphic depictions of violence + profanity will probably occur

so will forms of physical abuse

* * *

 **playlist ;**

sippy cup | melanie martinez

elastic heart | sia

centuries | fall out boy

soap | melanie martinez

alive | sia

chandelier | sia

stressed out | 21 Pilots

big girls cry | sia


	2. 1 - bloodstains

_sherlock_

The moon bled silver all over the night sky, touching the clouds, turning them into gaping silver wounds, making them drip with luminescence.

Sherlock Holmes sat cross-legged in bed with a tissue pressed against the corner of his lips, an acrid, bloody taste filling his mouth, coating over the bile that still lay on his tongue from when he'd retched just a few minutes ago. It was a harmonious blend of flavours that reminded him of the way branches twisted on themselves, choking themselves, gnarled and ugly in the darkness.

The boy's gaze wandered across his room and lingered on the action figure that lay perched on top of his desk: Superman. John had given it to him last weekend after making Sherlock sit through two hours of Superman whilst his boyfriend made John sit through two hours of complaining. 

"Superman's stupid," Sherlock had said.

"You're stupid," the reply had come.

John had seen him out of the house after having shoved the figurine into his hand. "Promise me you won't throw it away."

He had promised he wouldn't. And, ridiculously so, he had kept his word so far.

It had seemed such a childish thing to have, to be given: a plastic toy figurine of a buff superhero that probably came out of a happy meal John had had as a kid. The blue colouring on the hero's left biceps had started to come off, but it was its own imperfection; its old imperfection that allowed Sherlock to appreciate it. It was a bit like John. Flawed, and yet perfectly so.

Sighing softly, Sherlock crumpled up the bloodstained tissue and tossed it in the bin's general direction. It missed its mark, bouncing off the rim and onto the dark grey carpet.

Sherlock thought the scarlet against the white and grey was morbidly beautiful. He didn't bother himself with picking it up.

It was getting late: far too late, but Sherlock couldn't sleep, and he still hadn't taken a shower. The book he was supposed to be reading for English lay open, face-down on his bed, the spine caving in half. The book's title was _Heart of Darkness_ , and he didn't care much for it.

He plucked a tissue from the box on his night table and stuffed it into the novel, closing it. As much as he didn't care for the story, he detested dog-eared pages. They disrupted the neat way in which the pages slotted up against each other, all the same size, flat against each other. Sherlock flung the book onto his desk and lay back on his pillows with a sigh, rubbing his eyes. He missed John, although it was his fault he missed him.

 _Meet me at work tonight. 7:00_. John had said. It was already past eleven and Sherlock had barely gotten out of bed since he'd come home that afternoon. He hadn't even replied to the text.

But he was Sherlock Holmes, and he didn't feel bad about it.

.::.

"Hi, Dad," he murmured, as he walked downstairs to get a glass of water.

Siger didn't hear him. He sat at the small dining table with a bottle of whiskey in hand, his fingers clumsily tracing the printed lines of text in a file that lay in scattered pages across the polished oak wood. Sherlock had spent hours nicking files and cases from his dad's office, had spent hours sifting through them, absorbing what he could, solving the older cases in the margins of his chemistry notebooks, in the insides of the covers of John's textbooks which he found abandoned in his boyfriend's locker at six o'clock in the evening whilst John was off at practice.

The cold water condensed in large droplets on the outside of the glass, and the boy watched as it slipped between his fingers; clear, pristine, beautiful, in some way. He shook the droplets off after a moment and looked back at his father as he leaned against the kitchen doorframe, taking a drink.

It cooled his mouth, washed the blood and the bile out from the pores of his tongue, made the taste disappear after a few swallows, made his head stop spinning so much. It didn't look like water would do the Detective Inspector much good at this point, though.

His father drank because he had killed innocent people, and he took his guilt and anger out on his son because Sherlock had killed his mother. The detective would remember all those things as he poured over files at one in the morning, the bottle of alcohol emptying itself in his glass, diluted from the melted ice cubes.

And all he did was drink more at night, turn up sober for work, waste himself away.

Sherlock left him to it, treading back upstairs with his glass of water to get changed and get into bed. 

Sometimes, he would dream things that were so hallucinogenic yet so harsh that they became Sherlock's nighttime reality.

He saw his father in the neurological ward of the hospital, bottle in hand, taking a swig, standing outside room 709.

He saw himself standing there, across the hallway from his father, staring with dead eyes at the door of the room.  
He didn't need to see Siger to hear him, to feel the weight of every single blow as it crashed upon him like brackish, powerful waves thundering against a coastline.

Still he blamed himself for things that were not truly real.

"I see her here, you know," came the slur, although it was still crisp, sharp. "I see her, and I think to myself- how the fuck am I supposed to raise this kid- this hyperactive, stupid _kid_ alone? You fucking killed her, William, do you hear me? You fucking killed her, and she's not coming back."

And then he would throw the bottle, and it would rain shards onto the floor of the empty corridor, and Sherlock's clothes would be soaked in the pungent, bittersweet odour of whiskey. 

We're a family of psychos, Sherlock would often joke to himself in the middle of the night, before falling asleep with the tears drying up on his face.


	3. 2 - cocktails

_john_

The part of his job which he most enjoyed was shaking up the cocktails at the bar, but nothing dampened his evening more than unruly customers; or customers he knew. It was always a little awkward when he served his friends their dinners whilst he couldn't even stop by for a little chat, take some time off. If Sherlock had been here, he'd have probably tried to make some free time, just to drag his boyfriend off to the bathroom for a quick snog, but he knew that was a ridiculous thing to hope for.

Something in him had changed, and it was beginning to consume his consciousness. He'd asked Sherlock to come over to the pub and pay him a little visit at the bar, maybe get a soda, something to eat. John just really wanted to make sure that Sherlock didn't stop eating. Although he'd only turned seventeen in July, he saw it as his responsibility to take care of his boyfriend, who didn't bother with taking care of himself.

Obviously, the dolt hadn't shown up. Hadn't even replied.

Rubbing his knuckles, he washed his hands quickly and poured out the mixed cocktail into two glasses, slotting a lime in on the glass rims before calling Ambrosio over. "Table four," he told the waiter, and then started on his next order.

He was working this extra hour because of his fucking boss. He'd only started this stupid job to get in a bit more money to his mum to help her with the rent and paying for Harry's pretty shitty university, and earlier this evening, he'd been assigned to washing the glasses. He'd accidentally broken the very fine stem of one of the wine glasses, so his boss had told him he wouldn't pay him for the next hour.

So here John was, thinking about the biology homework he still hadn't started on as he shook the next alcoholic beverage for the next set of customers.

His thoughts constantly switched to Sherlock. All he wanted to do was talk to him, really, but the boy was probably mad at him. John had been purposefully ignoring his boyfriend whilst he tried to fix up his life without wanting Sherlock to get hurt or in the way, but he needed him now. He still barely had control over his shifting during the daytime, or regular nights, but it was on the full moon where he feared he would hurt someone.

Kill someone.

His mum had asked him about the scratches on the walls of their cellar and the two smashed wine bottles last night. He'd replied with a shrug, but John had felt awful about it. The wines had been vintages, and bloody expensive ones, too.

John knew he was being selfish, wanting to get Sherlock back so that he could help him get through this, but he saw no other way to get control. Surely Sherlock would be able to help him: he always had ideas, he always knew everything. 

.::. 

When John finally got out of work it was 11:00pm and he knew he was fucked for tomorrow's biology class. Maybe Mike would help him out during break and give him all the answers.

"Hi, Mum," he called as he opened the front door and immediately went for the fridge to grab himself something to eat before he starved to death. Christ, how did Sherlock survive on so little to eat? He cut himself a hunk of bread and tore off a piece with his teeth as he walked into the living room.

"Hi, love," she said, and gave him a little smile, before sighing at him. "John, for the love of Christ, how many times do I have to tell you? Get a plate, or else I'm making you do the vacuuming."

"Sorry, sorry," he said, with his mouth full of bread, and sank his teeth down into the bread before darting back into the kitchen and doing as his mum had told him to.

The remainder of their conversation was short and the usual exchange of words: how was work, good, how was school, etc. It was almost like a drill to John. They didn't have nice family conversations anymore. That had stopped after Harry had started University and his mum had started working double-shifts at the hospital. She looked bloody exhausted.

"Get some sleep, mum," John said softly, as he dumped his plate into the dishwasher and grabbed himself an apple and a glass of milk before heading upstairs.

John could almost see the accumulation of sweat and dirt and alcohol from the day and tonight as it was swept from his body in a gentle stream of cool water. The shower head sputtered out bursts of water above him, which was why he could only keep a faint stream of water running. Anything else, and he'd flood the bathroom.

He went to bed in an old Rolling Stones T-shirt which he hadn't realised he owned up until last week. The red tongue glared at him as he took a look at himself in the mirror, brushing his teeth, his gaze gradually drifting down to his checkered boxer shorts before they rested on his sagging eyes, his hair that was a little too short, his skin that was a little too unevenly tanned.

He lay on his side with one leg on top of the eiderdown, his phone in hand and the apple in the other. He knew he'd already brushed his teeth, and the first few bites were disgustingly tinted with a hint of mint, but he was still hungry.

It took jim far too long to press Sherlocks name in his contacts and open up messenger.

 _Hey, Sherl. JW_

He hadn't been expecting a reply, and none came. It was late, sure, but Sherlock was Sherlock. He could go for two days without sleeping.

John waited.

He waited for 5 minutes. 10. 15. He'd been about to turn his phone off, put it to charge, and go to bed, but the moment the apple core landed in his bin was the moment he got the text.

 _What do you want? SH_

 _I just wanted to say sorry. JW_

 _For what? SH_

 _For not being there this past week. I miss you. JW_

There was another long pause before John desperately wrote out another text.

 _I'll talk to you at school tomorrow, love. JW_

 _No, you won't. SH_

Sherlock's reply was scathing bitterness, sarcasm, repulsion: all things John had experienced coming from the boy, mostly before they'd gotten together, but it nevertheless hurt a lot right now.

John put his phone up to charge and closed his eyes, folding his hands over his stomach. His thoughts turned to Sherlock again— damn him. John grabbed his pillow and hugged it to himself.

What would it feel like, right now, if Sherlock was in bed with him right now, the curve of his back fitted against John's chest? What would it feel like to have an arm draped around his waist? How soft would his hair feel when John buried his face in it? How would his curls smell?

John remembered what it was like to run his hands through the brunet's locks, how his apple-cinnamon shampoo smelled when its scent was kept caged in by Sherlock's perfect mess of curls. He remembered it all, but it was growing to become a stale memory; and he was growing insatiable. He needed Sherlock in his life, truly, and tomorrow, he was going to have to try his best to break the stubborn mule that was Sherlock Holmes.

He hated him. He hated the idiot.

And yet he had allowed himself to fall in love with him, and he hated that even more, because it had been the best and stupidest decision of his life, to love him.

But he wasn't ready to regret having kissed him in the bathroom cubicle, wasn't ready to regret holding hands with him in abandoned parks at night as they lay in the grass and looked at stars, wasn't ready to regret holding him when he cried at school despite his protests, because the idiot had felt ashamed of it.

All he needed was to be ready to spill the truth out, put one foot forwards and trust that Sherlock would bot be repulsed by the reality that had now begun to consume John's life.

He would make Sherlock see reason, for his sake and theirs.

As he fell asleep, he could almost smell the sweet scent of his shampoo, but when he opened his eyes, there was nobody there except for the darkness.


	4. 3 - frogs and morgues

_sherlock_

He was bored.

Simply put, he was bored. He was bored, surrounded by boring people, the accumulation of the boring sound of boring life as it thrummed through the school corridor.

Sherlock tried to block it out best he could by focusing on his locker, which was only a few paces down through a throng of students all lingering about and chatting about moronic things such as who shagged who last night. He ignored the equally moronic yells of _freak_ and other alienating insults from the idiots around him as he furiously put in his locker combination and yanked the lock open.

Where was John, right now? Where was he?

The brunet had been asking himself the same question every day now, for the past week and a half, and every time, it had gone unanswered. John was avoiding him, and yesterday, he'd apologised for it. In Sherlock's mind, verbal apologies never did anything, and John's only had managed to make him feel even worse about _them._

Normally, John would tell the bullies to piss off, and Sherlock would wait for him by his locker, a mess of raven curls popping up above everyone else.

Today, though, Sherlock didn't wait. He was sick of it. He was sick of waiting for John to meet him at lunch, before class, after class, sick of waiting for him to meet up in the park on a weekend, sick of waiting for him to be done with practice. Until John was going to tell him the truth, he would continue to be sick of it.

The most harrowing thought of all was the simple possibility that John had looked at someone else twice instead of him. He was surrounded by his exes: Mary, Sarah, Elizabet - and they were all pretty, and Sherlock knew that they had dumped John, not the other way around.

The thought resurfaced that morning, as he stood there, staring into his locker, his hand clasping his biology folder, and he froze, struck with the sudden realisation, once more, that he might end up all alone again, all alone with Siger, the monster, and without Mycroft to take care of him or tuck him into bed if he was crying.

John didn't know, and Sherlock had no intention of letting him know.

He slammed the metal door shut, relishing in the clanging sound it made, the door rattling slightly on its hinges as he clicked the lock on.

He turned his back on the insults and headed to biology.

.::.

Miss Duval had sketched out a very nice drawing of the anatomy of the frog on the blackboard, and had fully labelled most of it. Sherlock looked down at the frog anatomy and direction booklet that lay before him, and spent most of the time she spent talking thinking about what the frog would look like if it were decapitated.

Sherlock liked dissections, although he had quickly grown tired of his high school organ dissections: the brain, heart, lungs, pig livers; he'd dragged John to the hospital morgue more than once after having 'acquired' a keycard access pass. In truth, he just pickpockets the staff and then put the keycards on the receptionist's desk when nobody was looking.

He had seen things, with John. Brutal things. Horrible things.

The last time they'd been to the morgue, it had been at the start of the animal attacks that were plaguing the town. The police blamed it on mountain lions, but the police knew the wolf hairs on every corpse they uncovered couldn't have gotten there by chance.

Only one puzzling question remained: how did wolf hairs get on a body when wolves haven't been sighted in the last half-century in the neighbouring woods? It hardly made sense, but Sherlock was determined to get a hold on the case and crack it.

He was just looking forwards to cutting up his frog, _alone_ , and using the tweezers to play around with its biceps and reflex tendons to make it move a little.

.::.

 _john_

"Mate, you've got to tell him."

"I already risked everything telling you," John whispered to his friend, and clenched his hands into fists in his lap, staring purposefully down at the plain, plastic-looking lab tables. He'd already made eye-contact with Sherlock once in bio, and once was enough.

Sherlock's eyes had been full on hate, full of anger, full of turmoil, and John didn't think he could muster the courage to walk over to him again and sort things out. He'd been so confident about it last night, but now, his confidence was beginning to wane, and rapidly so.

Yes, Greg knew.

He'd practically wrung the truth out of John in a near-violent argument in the boys' locker rooms about John's wellbeing, because Greg, being Greg, had noticed that something was wrong with his best friend, and that it could probably be somewhat fixed if John shared his burden with someone else.

He'd laughed, at first, and then he'd paled, and was horrified, and then believed John, and now, he was alright with it.

Of course, Sherlock hadn't noticed anything wrong.

He was the most observant out of all of them, and yet he failed tremendously at noticing other peoples' emotions towards him. John had reeked of anxiety when he'd first found out, and it had become so overwhelming that he'd forced himself to ignore Sherlock. He already felt guilty enough about putting Greg in danger.

What if someone bad found out? What if he'd put Greg on the front line because he knew 'too much'?

John didn't fancy seeing actual bloodshed anywhere where it concerned his friends- or anyone he knew, really.

His friend's voice brought him back to biology. "Yeah, but you have to tell him," Greg muttered back, tapping his pencil against his dissection booklet. "I mean, look at him."

John didn't want to look at Sherlock, so he didn't.

"He'll understand. Just tell him the truth, or else-"

"Or else _what_?" It almost came out as a hushed snap, but John managed to control himself. Had they been on the field, he might've gone off on a rant that would have probably left Greg in reluctant agreement.

Greg sighed, his hand stilled, and the pencil with it. "Just tell him. Pl-"

"Mr. Lestrade, is there something you and Mr. Watson would like to share with the rest of the class?" John knew that Miss Duval was one of the nicer teachers in the school, but he didn't want to risk detention, so he nudged Greg's leg with his foot and shook his head. "No. Sorry," he apologised, an then glanced over to Sherlock.

The brunet met his gaze with a condescending look before he rolled his eyes and turned his head away. John suppressed a sigh.

This was going to be a long day.


End file.
